ESSENCE OF PARLIAMENT.
EXTRACTED FROM THE DIARY OF TOBY, M.P.
House of Lords, Monday, July 9.—Playfair's leonine countenance habitually cheerful. But never saw him looking so pleased as when we walked through St. Stephen's Chapel on way to Lords just now. "From point of view of old House of Commons man the Lords are, I admit, a little unresponsive," my Lord said. "The chamber is, acoustically and otherwise, the sepulchre of speech. You remember the little lecture on margarine I delivered years ago in the Commons? Bless me, how delighted the House was to see the table covered with small white pots containing samples, with a bottle of best Dorset margarine hooked on to the Mace for greater convenience of reference. Often I've enchained an audience with my object lessons. Up to present time that monologue on margarine ranks as most successful. But I'll beat the record to-night. See that?" (Here he slapped a something bulging out from his trouser pocket.) "Guess what that is? Thought you couldn't. It's cultch. Know what cultch is?"
"Not unless it's the beginning of knowledge," I said, drawing a bow, so to speak, at a venture. "Positive cultch, comparative culture, eh?"
Playfair stared at me vacantly. "Cultch——" he said; "but no, that's part of the lecture. Come along to the Lords and hear it."
Suggested Statues for the Vacant Niches in the Inner Lobby.
No. I.—"The Majesty of the Law!"
House not in condition particularly inspiring for lecturer. Benches mostly empty; Stanley of Alderley completed depletion by rambling speech of half an hour's duration, modestly described in Orders as "a question." Wanted to know how many lighthouses in England and Wales paid Income Tax; how many were behindhand with their rates; were Death Duties applicable to some of them; if so, which; and whether the tenants compounded for rates or otherwise. These inquiries not without interest, but Stanley not chiefly remarkable for concentration of thought or conciseness of phrase.
At length Playfair's turn came. A flutter of interest amongst Peers as he was observed tugging at something in trousers pocket; hauled out what looked like empty oyster shell.
"Ah!" said Herschell, smiling, "I see the lawyers have been before us."
"In moving the Second Reading of the Sea Fisheries (Shell Fish) Bill, I propose, if I may be permitted, to give your Lordships an object lesson. This particular shell," Playfair continued, holding it up between finger and thumb, "is covered all over with microscopic oysters. Oysters in all stages of growth are seen there."
"Well," said the Marquis of Carabas, "if one had a twenty billion magnifying glass of the kind associated with the memory of Sam Weller, perhaps we might see the oysters. All I can say is, I don't see any worth three and sixpence a dozen. Playfair's no business to bring these things down here, filling House with smell of stale seaweed when his oysters are no bigger than a pin's head."
The Marquis strode angrily forth. Others followed. Lecture cut short.
Business done.—Sea Fisheries (Shell Fish) Bill read a second time, amid unexpectedly depressing circumstances.
House of Commons, Tuesday.—Squire of Malwood back after a week's rustication. Brings glowing news of the hay crop; looks, indeed, as if he had been helping to make it; ruddier than a cherry; indescribable but unmistakable country air about him as he sits on Treasury Bench with folded arms, listening to the monotonous ripple of talk renewed on Budget Bill.
"Rusticus expectat dum defluat amnis,"
says Prince Arthur, looking across at the rustic Squire.
"At ille
Labitur et labetur in omne volubilis ævum,"
added Jokim, with approving glance at bench behind, where the Busy B.'s swarm after week's rest, humming round amendments with increased vigour.
Almost imperceptible movement of river goes forward. The blameless Bartley on his feet, entrancing House with particulars of a silver cup, prized heirloom in the humble household in Victoria Street. It seems that one of Bartley's ancestors—he who came over with the Conqueror—had brought with him certain blades of buckwheat, which he industriously planted out on the site, then a meadow, on which the Army and Navy Stores now flourish. The buckwheat grew apace. One day King Stephen, passing by on a palfrey, noted the waving green expanse. Enquiring to whom the State was indebted for this fair prospect, a courtier informed him that it was "the ancestor of George Christopher Trout Bartley, Member for North Islington in the thirteenth Parliament of Queen Victoria."
"By our sooth," said the King, "he shall have a silver cup."
One was forthwith requisitioned from the nearest silversmith's, and this it is which now adorns the sideboard in the best parlour at St. Margaret's House, Victoria Street, S.W.
These interesting reminiscences of family history George Christopher Trout recited to a charmed House in support of proposed new Clause, moved by Dick Webster, exempting from estate duty heirlooms under settlement. Squire of Malwood, usually impervious to argument in favour of alterations in his prized Budget, evidently moved. If Bartley had only thought of bringing the cup with him, had at this moment produced it from under his cloak, and flashed it forth on gaze of House, the Clause would have been added, and the cup, Estate-duty free, would have passed on through the ages, telling its simple story to successive strata of the Bartley family. As it was, Squire stood firm, and Webster's Clause negatived.
"Couldn't do it, my dear Webster," the Squire found opportunity of saying, as he met disappointed legislator behind Speaker's Chair. "Of course I said the polite thing about Bartley's Cup. But I wasn't thinking of that. I know very well what you had in mind in bringing in this Clause. The heirlooms you thought of are those cups and medals you won for Cambridge when, twenty-nine years ago, you met the Oxford Champion in the two-mile race, and in the one-mile spin. If we could do something in the Schedules specially exempting them I should be glad. Think it over, and see me later."
An Interesting Specimen. The Coleridge Caterpillar!
Webster wrung the Squire's hand, and passed on, saying nothing. There are moments when speech is superfluous. 'Tis true, they don't often occur in House of Commons; but here was one. Let us cherish its memory.
Business done.—Considering and negativing new Clauses to Budget Bill.
Thursday.—All the cheerfulness of to-day has brightened Committee-room, where question of issue of Writ, following on application for Chiltern Hundreds, is considered. The Squire under examination for nearly two hours and a-half. Difficult to say which the more enjoyed it, the witness or the Committee.
"What is the state of a Peer pending issue of Writ of Summons?" asked the Squire, suddenly taking to interrogate the Committee assembled to question him. "Is he a caterpillar passing through a larva, spinning a cocoon of silk until he reaches a condition where they toil not neither do they spin?" (Here, quite by accident, his glance fell upon Joseph, supposed to be sitting upon him in judicial capacity.) "There is," he continued (and here he glanced at Prince Arthur, smiling at the sly hit dealt at his dear friend Joe) "an opening for philosophic doubt as to the precise condition of this impounded Peer in his intermediary state."
The House still going about with millstone of Budget Bill round its neck, Byrne, Butcher, Beach, Bowles and Bartley tugging at it, Kenyon-Slaney now and then uttering obvious truths with air of supernatural wisdom. Grand Young Gardner (address Board of Agriculture, Whitehall Place, S.W.) hands me scrap of paper; says he found it near Squire's seat on Treasury Bench; but it doesn't look like his writing:
"Two modes there are, O Byrne and Butcher,
Our gratitude to earn:
If Byrne would only burn up Butcher,
Or Butcher butcher Byrne;
Or both combine—yes, bless their souls—
To burn and butcher Tommy Bowles!"
Business done.—Very little.
Friday.—Temple going about much as if on Tuesday night he had got out of his cab in the ordinary fashion. He didn't, you know. Taken out in sections through the upper window by couple of stalwart policemen. This owing to circumstance that Irish cab-driver having, after fashion of his country, saved a trot for the avenue, dashed up against kerbstone and overturned cab.
"Gave me a start, of course," Temple said, as we brushed him down. "Not a convenient way of getting out of your hansom. What I was afraid of was being disfigured. Am not a vain man, but don't mind telling you, Toby, a scratch or a scar on one's face would have been exceedingly annoying. But I'm all right, as you see. Hope it isn't a portent. A small thing that under this Government I should be overturned. What I fear is, that unless we keep our eye on them they'll overturn the Empire."
Business done.—Not yet done with Budget.
Fashionable Information and Suggestion.—The Duke and Duchess of Bedford having returned from Thorney will go to Beds;—a delightful change, that is unless they are rose-beds, which are proverbially thorny. And "the Duchess of Roxburghe goes to Floors." No Beds here; only Floors. Why not combine the two establishments and get them both under one roof?
"Nihil tetiqit quod non ornavit," as the prizefighter said of his right fist, after blacking his opponent's eye and breaking the bridge of his nose.
"The Knights of Labour" seem to be banded together against "Days of Work."
